


TBR

by okapi



Series: Spooky & Kooky (the Halloween fics) [15]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Books, Community: spook_me, F/F, Fem!John - Freeform, Femlock, Halloween, Humor, Monsters, Neglected books turn into a monster, Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon, Tentacle Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 21:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16437449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: John's To-Be-Read pile will no longer be neglected.Genderbent. Light Hallowe'en horror. For the 2018 Spook Me Ficathon.





	TBR

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to 

**FEBRUARY**

“There is a monster under my bed, Sherlock.”

Sherlock did not reply but a hand reached out from behind the newspaper and grabbed the second to last slice of toast.

“It ate my book! The one I just got. I hadn’t even read it yet. A biography of the artist Edward Gorey. That’s the second book the monster’s eaten. Last month, it was the Agatha Christie, a Miss Marple, the one where she’s knitting.”

“Isn’t that all of them, John?”

“True, but still, there’s a monster under my bed.”

“There’s no monster under your bed.”

“Then where’s the book?”

“Wedged between the mattress and the bed frame. This happens every time you take a book to bed. You never get past page one. You fall asleep and put the book beside you in the bed and the book slips down the gap between the head of the bed and the wall. Mystery solved.” Sherlock lowered her paper and held out her hand. “That’ll be fifty quid.”

John put the last slice of toast jam-side down on Sherlock’s palm.

“Ta.”

* * *

**MARCH**

Lestrade stared, incredulous.

“…you know what an orc is, right, John?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t, do you? You’ve never read _The Lord of the Rings_?”

“Oh, yeah! I remember them. I saw the film, but it was years ago.”

“You never read the book?!”

“No.”

“Okay, that’s got to change. I’m going to get you a copy, and you’re going to thank me.”

* * *

**APRIL**

“ _A Book for the Hammock_ , William Clarke Russell,” read Sherlock. “Victorian sea stories, John? Doesn’t seem like your first choice in literature.”

“This is the sum total of my inheritance from Great Aunt Maude. It is said to have belonged to my great-great-grandfather. Do you think it’s worth anything?”

Sherlock lifted the cover and shrugged. “Doubtful.”                                                                    

“I suppose I ought to try to read it before I give it to Oxfam, yeah? But it’s probably nothing but shipwrecks, mutinies, and giant squid.”

“How are you coming with _The Lord of the Rings_?”

John sighed. “I’m not. But, please, don’t tell Lestrade. And I never found the ones the monster ate.”

“Did you look for them?”

John grunted.

* * *

**MAY**

“I can’t believe you’ve never read it, Doctor. Here. Take mine. Can you believe this, Gertrude?”

“What?!”

“Doctor Watson’s never read _The Da Vinci Code_!”

“What?! Well, give her your copy! We’ve got another at home.”

“That’s what I’m doing!”

“No, that’s very kind, but I really can’t accept...”

“Here!”

“Take it!”

* * *

**JUNE**

John settled herself in her armchair “I really should take a crack at this. Maybe I won’t fall asleep if I read downstairs.”

“Don’t even attempt to read that drivel. This, John.” Sherlock strode to the bookshelves and retrieved a volume, which she then dropped in John’s lap.

“ _Diary of Jack the Ripper_?”

“How mysteries are actually solved in the real world. Much more interesting.”

* * *

**JULY - SEPTEMBER**

“How’s the book, John? Tolkien’s a genius, right?”

“Oh, yeah, genius.”

* * *

“Doctor, have you got to the part where Langdon…?”

“Oh, yeah, fascinating.”

* * *

“…thin layer chromatography, like the kind used to test Maybrick’s diary…”

“Oh, yeah, that.”

* * *

**OCTOBER**

John woke to a knock.

“Come in!” she called. She rubbed her eyes and checked her mobile.

It was early. Very early.

Sherlock opened the door slowly.

“Case, John. If you’d like…”

“I’d like, I’d like. Give us a minute, yeah?”

Sherlock stepped in the room. She was fully dressed, including coat and scarf.

“John, those books.”

John looked down at the stack of four under her bed.

“Yeah?”

“Have you read any of them? Even a page?”

“It’s been a busy summer, Sherlock.”

“It’s the middle of October, John.”

“I’ll get to them after the case. Do you know some people post photos on the internet of their stacks of unread books? They call them TBR.”

“People put photos of all sorts of things on the internet, John.”

“Very true. Ok. I’m ready. Let’s go.”

* * *

“It’s a rainy Wednesday night.” John sighed and gazed out the window. “No case. Nothing on.”

“Why don’t you read a book?”

“Oh, yeah.” John sighed. “Or I might just go to bed early.”

* * *

John woke, frowning.

There was an unpleasant smell somewhere.

She reached for her mobile.

It was early. Very early.

She sniffed.

It smelled like fish. Raw fish.

Where on earth was it coming from? The odor was strong.

Sherlock, of course. Some odd experiment downstairs.

Investigate? Or hide under the covers until morning and hope whatever it was wasn’t explosive?

Hide.

* * *

John tried to fall back asleep, and she’d almost succeeded when she heard a rustling.

She quickly moved to the edge of the bed and sat.

“Ugh!”

Her heel landed in something wet.

Overturned cup of tea or glass of water?

No, John hadn’t brought anything like that upstairs.

She heard the rustling again, and her heart stopped.

It was in the room.

She switched on the bedside lamp and looked down. There was a dark, inky pool on the floorboards.

John followed it with her eyes until…

“AARGH!”

There was a man standing in the corner.

No, not a man, a monster.

It wore a top hat and a Victorian suit, but its face was not human. It had round eyes and dark pink rubbery skin and shoulder-length tentacles of a lighter pink that furled and unfurled like a long, writhing beard. It had two hands at the end of long arms, in addition to the dozen or so tentacles. For a moment, it gave the curious impression of a romantic suitor of a science fiction novel, for John saw it bore a pale pink rose in one of those hands.

But it bore a fantastic-looking scimitar in the other.

This was a dream, certainly a dream.

WHACK!

John jumped as the sword fell beside her on the bed, splitting the bedding and the mattress.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

She glanced at the drawer her gun was stored, but upon raising its sword from where it had sunk, the monster stepped between her and the desk.

“READ!” it roared.

“Read?” echoed John, jumping again and scurrying across the bed, away from the creature. “If you want to read, there’s a dozen shelves crammed full of books downstairs. And, wait, I’ve got four right here.”

John crawled back across the bed, then laid herself flat and looked down.

“Shit!”

The books were gone. There was nothing under the bed but that inky pool, which was now being dispersed about the room in the form of John’s footprints.

John looked up at the monster.

_Diary of Jack the Ripper_

_The Da Vinci Code_

_The Lord of the Rings_

_A Book for the Hammock_

The monster didn’t want the books. The monster _was_ the books.

WHACK!

John rolled to one side.

“Are you the monster under my bed? Did you eat my Miss Marple and my biography of Edward Gorey?”

WHACK!

John rolled to the other side.

“READ!”

“Listen, I’m sorry I haven’t read any of you. I’ve been meaning to, really, I have. YEEE!”

John’s bedroom was small. She sprang to the far side of the bed as the creature lunged. She tried to skirt the bed and make for the door, but the creature was too fast and blocked her escape.

And there it stood.

It was tall and hulking. Its glassy, wet, saucer-sized eyes looked down on John. Despite their chase, the top hat was still in place on the monster’s head. The tentacles wriggled, spilling over the gentleman’s cravat and triangles of shirt collar.

John breathed in the faint scent of the pale pink rose, which was overpowered briny stench of rotten sea life and noted the curved blade of the scimitar was smeared with a green, festering substance.

“READ!”

The monster advanced. John retreated.

In three steps, they were at the bed.

John fell onto her back and the monster leaned over her.

The scimitar was raised high, the festering green taint sliding down its edge. A pale pink rose petal brushed John’s cheek on its descent.

John pinched her eyes shut and screamed the only word that came to mind.

“SHERLOCK!”

“AARRGH!”

The monster cried out in agony and fell limp atop John, some of its tentacles settling in her mouth.

John spat them out and stared, agog.

Behind the monster was the black-and-white figure—like a macabre, pen-and-ink caricature—of Sherlock Holmes.

And sticking out of the monster’s back were a pair of knitting needles.

“Sherlock!”

The figure smiled and spoke in the deep, posh tone Joh adored.

“Don’t neglect the books you want to read, John. But nothing spoils the pleasure of reading quicker than guilt or obligation. You’re beholden to no one. Even me.”

John swallowed and nodded.

“You know, Edward Gorey would’ve done wonders with you, Sherlock.”

The figure laughed. “And orcish scimitars are no match for an English spinster’s knitting needles. Go to sleep, John. I’ll take care of this fellow.”

And with that, the monster was dragged by his feet off John’s body and out the bedroom door, leaving an inky, smelly, petal-strewn trail in its wake.

* * *

The top hat and the gashes in John’s bed convinced her that it wasn’t all a dream, but the first thing she did after she woke was to push the bed away from the wall and slide a hand between the mattress and frame.

“YES!” she cried. “Edward Gorey! And Miss Marple!”

There was a knock at the door.

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“Case?”

“Nah, I think I’m going to take a day off and read.”

“Be careful.”

“You, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> This is one of the two photo prompts which I was given for the Spook Me Challenge:
> 
>  


End file.
